Learning from our Consultancy Journey

PACSA established a Consultancy Unit in 2013 that offers a variety of development facilitation, logistics organisation, training and mentorship services in support of PACSA's core work by earning independent income. All surplus income generated is invested to support PACSA's core work together with people from the poorest communities in and around Pietermaritzburg.

Current Services

The unit currently offers services primarily to donors and their development partners in South Africa and other SADC countries. Our approach is based in process facilitation, which entails accompanying civil society partners as agents of social transformation as they take their work forward.

Examples of past and current projects are attached below.

Client Base and Types of Contracts

Our first contracts have been with donor agencies, due to our reputation amongst them over the past 35 years.

But we are in 2014 beginning to offer services to other clients, and our services are offered to other civil society organisations, churches and church based organisations, Government departments and business enterprises.

We take on contracts which are consistent with our values, enable us to extend our influence w.r.t. social transformation towards a more just society; and offer viable income to contribute towards the long term sustainability of PACSA's core work.

Specific capacities that we offer, on request, include

Notemaking and preparing presentations on the outcomes of processes as input to follow-up steps;

Offering training and mentoring for social transformation – including:

organisational capacity enhancement,

youth peer education,

ethics and leadership, and

mainstreaming of gender, HIV and economic justice perspectives in relation to development work;

Advocacy and lobbying.

Undertaking organisational or programme evaluations and reviews;

Undertaking evidence-based and community-based research; and

Producing accessible publications to support any of the above services.

Staffing

The Unit is managed by Ms Nareshnie Maharaj, and additional capacities for specific projects are generally offered by PACSA's core staff, thus drawing on PACSA's 35 years of experience in the social justice and development sector.

Contact us

For further information or to explore contracting PACSA's Consultancy Unit to support your social development and justice work, contact Nareshnie at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Tel 033 3420052.

PACSA has published a case study on its experiences of working as a consultancy. The report was written by Daniela Gennrich and is offered as a reflection of a journey into unfamiliar territory. Read more about the process or download the full report here.

Created in God's Image: A gender transformation toolkit for women and men in churches. This is a revised edition of the booklet "Created in God's Image: A tool for women and men in churches" produced in 2008. The structure of the tool has been changed to take the form of a toolkit. Click here for the revised toolkit.

Some examples of our past and current projects

Christian Aid and ICCO - GENDER AND HIV MAINSTREAMING (2011-12): Accompanying 8 South African partner NGOs of Christian Aid and ICCO as they developed a deeper consciousness of the ways gender and HIV influence their work and their organisational dynamics, and more deliberately embedded this in their organisational processes as well as their social change work.

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) - CHURCHES AND GENDER TRANSFORMATION (2013): Reviewing progress made in 5 SADC countries since gender audits were undertaken amongst churches in 2007; writing up a good practice model based on the Zambian story; and developing accessible discussion materials for use by church leaders and church groups in Southern African countries.

SUPPORTING OXFAM TO EXPLORE A CONTEXTUALLY APPROPRIATE CONSULTATION PROCESS ON THE NATIONAL HEALTH INITIATIVE (NHI) IN SOUTH AFRICA (2013): Developing and writing up a collaborative consultation process with community groups to draw in community perceptions of the NHI, and write up a possible good practice model for community consultation.

FASTENOPFER (FO) – FO SOUTH AFRICA PROGRAMME COORDINATION (2013 to date): Supporting FO's South Africa Programme by offering a local FO presence, coordination and support for 12 FO partners in South Africa.

STOPAIDSNOW and Rutgers WPF: (2014) Assisting a systematic training programme: Quality of SRHR and HIV prevention for youth 2014; Logistics and Notemaking for 4 training sessions in Gauteng for youth from Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

PACSA submission on the proposed National Minimum Wage

We call on the Portfolio Committee on Labour to consider the political consequences of passing a poverty-level National Minimum Wage which with the possible amendments to the Labour Relations Act and Basic Conditions of Employment Act will be felt for generations. These will lock Black South African workers and their families into deeper poverty and reproduce the low growth, low wage and low jobs trajectory. Read the full submission

Resource paper on the proposed VAT and fuel levy hike and its impact for the foods on our plates.

Budget 2018 proposed hiking the VAT rate to 15% and levying a 52 cents hike on the fuel levy. Using food as an entry point and drawing on PACSA’s food price barometer research, the following short paper is intended as a resource to better understand and conceptualise the impact of these proposals for working class households. Read full paper

PACSA letter to the Standing Committee on Finance on expanding the zero-rated basket to mitigate the effect of VAT

Expanding the basket of zero-rated foods has been contested on the basis of the following arguments:

Expanding the basket may disproportionately benefit the rich (because rich or poor we share quite a few common foods).

Selecting the new foods to be included in the zero-rated basket is incredibly complex as what foods are eaten, how foods are prepared and changing households purchasing patterns are all influenced by household specific and other complicated external variables. Even with the experience PACSA has around tracking food patterns and prices, there are just far too many variables in creating an expanded zero-rated basket that responds to the requirements of the working class and the impact on the larger economy. At best, we would be able to make an educated guess – but this hardly seems a sufficient response to the crisis we are in. Read full statement